acked the faith
of the Catholic Church. He never did. He protested himself a faithful
Catholic to the last. He was a puritan and a politician, and it was on
these two counts that he fought the Papacy.

[101] Landucci, _op. cit. p_. 176.

XVI. FLORENCE

S. MARIA NOVELLA

If Florence built the Baptistery, the Duomo, and the Campanile for the
glory of the whole city, that there might be one place, in spite of all
the factions, where without difference all might enter the kingdom of
heaven, one temple in which all the city might wait till Jesus passed
by, one tower which should announce the universal Angelus, she built
other churches too, more particular in their usefulness, less splendid
in their beauty, but not less necessary in their hold on the life of the
city, or their appeal to us to-day. You may traverse the city from east
to west without forsaking the old streets, and a little fantastically,
perhaps, find some hint in the buildings you pass of that old far-away
life, so restless and so fragile, so wanting in unity, and yet, as it
seems to us, with but one really profound intention in all its work, the
resurrection of life among men. In the desolate but beautiful Piazza of
S. Maria Novella, at the gates of the old city, you find a Dominican
convent, and before it the great church of that Order, S. Maria Novella
herself, the bride of Michelangelo. Then, following Via dei Fossi, you
enter the old city at the foot of the Carraja bridge, following Via di
Parione past an old Medici palace into Via Porta Rossa and so into Via
Calzaioli, where you came upon that strange and beautiful church so like
a palace, Or San Michele, built by the merchants, the Church of the
Guilds of the city. Passing thence into Piazza Signoria, and so into Via
de' Gondi, in the Proconsolo you find the Church of the great monastic
Order the Badia of the Benedictines, having passed on your way Palazza
Vecchio, the Palace of the Republic, afterwards of the Medici; and the
Bargello, the Palace of the Podesta, afterwards a prison; coming later
through Borgo de' Greci to the Church of S. Croce, the convent of the
Franciscans. Thus, while beyond the old west gate of the city there
stood the house of the Dominicans, the Franciscans built their convent
on the east, just without the city; and between them in the heart of
Florence dwelt the oldest Order of all, the Benedictines, busy with
manuscripts. Again, if the tower of authority throws its